Xicilian Fighter in Sunnydale
by tohonomike
Summary: Yo! Another Xander's Dad story, this one involves everyone's favorite movie boxer.


_Xicilian Fighter in Xunnydale_ _Author: Tohonomike __Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners...it will start off with the Joss/ME characters but also the Rocky and Godfather characters aren't mine either and any real-life folks are clearly not mine. NO money is involved. None are mine._

**Don't know if or when I'll continue this one, but it's been fighting to escape for a while. So consider yourself warned. It's on THPresents, because, frankly, while it may not be one of my best, I like it enough to publish here with the best.**

**1985**

"Is Unca 'pollo gonna be okay, Unca Michael?"

"The Sunnydale Hospital people are the best in the US for trauma injuries, Alex," the senior member of the Corleone Family assured his sister's grandson that looked like his father Rocky and acted a lot like Michael's long-gone brother Sonny.

Michael made sure to do what he could for the 'Balboa' branch of the family, not financially because they did alright, but just to make sure that one part of the family would be free of the unclean aspects of the family legacy. Ever since his sister had married surprised everyone by marrying that fella from Philadelphia and moved there back in the day, she had been able to split her loyalties between normality for both her sets of children, and a strong influence in family affairs.

Michael admired that, though he'd have wanted to take care of them better financially if she hadn't been so adamant they pull themselves up like dad had done. Still, her stepson Paulie hadn't done so well, but since Rocky had wooed and married Adrienne Jessica, that part of the family had been left alone by other families—partly as it was the code that they were family but not Family, and as the Italian Stallion was a national hero why bring down all of the Feds and public opinion on them all.

And now little Alex's folks were in Russia to train Rocky to fight the bastard commie that put the boy's other godfather into a coma—having nearly seen Apollo Creed's demise in the ring. Other godfather was always something that amused Michael as it had annoyed some in the family as Michael Corleone was also a godfather to the boy—but since Apollo Creed was a boxing hero with style and education, their grumbling was more pro forma habit than actual racism. Come on, it's Apollo Creed, the guy who got 'the Stallion' back into shape to whip that crude Clubber Lang soundly to regain the title.

"I want to stay here 'til he gets better, grandma lives here already," the boy declared, referring to the fact that now his grandmother had taken up residence near Sunnydale due to lungs and body that didn't handle the cold back home very well.

Michael actually thought it would do the 'Balboas' some good to relocate further from their roots, and the real estate prices in the area were amazingly low compared to the rest of the coast. Good clean-money investments to keep his sister out of Family trouble, and improve the chances for the legitimate family to remain free.

"I'll talk to your folks and grandma, 'kay kid? I think it's a great idea…and we'll get ya into kindergarten next week…"

**1985**

"Oh, it's the boxer boy—your daddy's SO gonna get beat up by that Russian man," Cordelia Chase taunted the boy who'd helped the redheaded girl who wouldn't take her orders. Cordelia reached over and grabbed the other girl's yellow crayon and snapped it in front of him. "You can't even protect your nerdy friends."

Xander watched as the nasty little girl turned and walked away, leaving his new friend Willow verging on tears. He reached into his own box and handed her his, and put the other pieces in his own box.

"Why, A--Xander?" the little girl asked, still not quite getting his name.

"'cause she did it 'cause of me. And you're my Willow friend." He looked at her happy look, then watched as Cordelia laughed at something mean her friends said to some other kid, 'And I won't let anything bad happen to my Willow friend again…'

"This is the assistant mayor…put the Creeds and Balboas on the 'protect' list; the boss doesn't want any trouble with the media or the Corleone Family…" the city official directed to the shadow leaders of the Hellmouth, "And better leave the kid's friends alone too…just to make sure."

**1992**

"Come on, kid, you're doing great, hit harder! Eye of the tiger!" Apollo Creed urged his godson Xander as they ran along the beach near Sunnydale, the muscular duo as inseparable as possible since the boy had visited the man in the hospital, talking to him and telling him everything, including how much 'dad' needed him. Apollo had woken up two hours before the fight in Moscow, and the two had managed to get a call through during the fight. Creed didn't believe in coincidence, and when the boy had declared he wanted to stay with grandma, the Creeds, who needed to stick around anyway for therapy, had moved in next door—which had led to the Balboas themselves moving in except for summers and major holidays to the East Coast.

**1997 – March 10th - Nighttime**

In the mausoleum, Willow screamed, falling back next to Jesse as Buffy and Xander show up, the girl having handed him two bottles of water and a wooden stick the Librarian had had on him as they left the Bronze earlier. Buffy strolls up in the lead.

"Well, this is nice. I-it's a little bare, but a dash of paint, a few throw pillows... call it home!"

Darla slowly begins circling, not yet picking up that Buffy is trying to separate the vampires from their captures, "Who the hell are you?"

"You mean there's actually someone in this town who doesn't know already? Whew, that's a relief, I'm telling you! Having a secret identity in this town is a job of work."

Xander started to scoot Willow out behind him as she tries to help a groggy Jesse to his feet., "Buffy, we bail now, right?"

"Not yet!" the badly and terribly out of date dressed vamp shouts.

Buffy shakes her head as she quips, "Okay, first of all, what's with the outfit? Live in the now, okay? You look like DeBarge!"

She turns to Darla as Xander manages to get Jesse up as Thomas makes a move against Buffy as she banters with Darla. As Buffy pulls the chair leg out from inside her shirt, Xander misses the male vampire but to everyone's surprises hit Darla in the face with a glancing blow, holy water causing her agonizing pain and the display of her demonic visage. Buffy neatly jams the makeshift stake into the male vampire's chest his chest. As the vampire and others except Buffy look surprise as he turns to dust, she turns back to Darla.

"See what happens when you roughhouse?"

"He was young and stupid!"

"Xander, go! Get them to safety!"

"Don't go far! I owe you!"

Buffy and Darla start to fight gracefully yet viciously as Jesse only now really begins to feel awake enough to be moved. Darla punches high at Buffy, but the blonde Slayer parries and gets in a short hit to Darla's chest with her bare knuckles.

Darla feints a kick, then a left punch, then manages a backhand right punch, but it only starts to make contact as Buffy uses the momentum to spin the vampires around and reward her with a front snap kick to the stomach. As the vamp leans forward from the pain, Buffy slams her elbow into Darla's back, knocking her down and away.

Xander and Willow help Jesse up off the ground and outside the mausoleum. Xander turns to his redheaded friend.

"Get him to the hospital, Wills," he said, getting ready to head back in. "Jesse, get to my car at the Bronze. We'll catch up in a few minutes."

Darla hits the wall and falls to the floor, surprised at the force of the hit. Buffy shakes her head unhappily.

"You know, I just wanted to start over. Be like everybody else. Have some friends, y'know, maybe a dog... But, no, you had to come here, you couldn't go suck on some other town."

"Who are you?"

"Don't you know?"

Luke grabs her by the neck from behind, "I don't care!"

The large strong male vampire is about to hurl her against the far wall when a small thin-glassed bottle of holy water shatters against the back of his skull and side of his face. He screams in agony and lets Buffy go. About to turn, a hand claws into his still-burning neck, driving the holy water against nerves his demonic energy uses to flow through the corpse, as fists feeling like they're sledge hammers start striking what used to be kidneys.

"Ahhhh!" the vampire screamed as the younger twin son of Rocky Balboa reenacted his father's tendency to destroy sides of frozen meat while in training. As the claw tore deeper, the stronger vamp almost couldn't control himself as the nerve impulses couldn't properly respond, only the vampire's mass allowing it to slide free and half turn.

Buffy screamed for Xander to get out of the mausoleum, while she pounded on Darla, but the boy was almost in a rage. Her and Darla parted for a moment, both surprised by the rage that allowed the boy the hammer shattering blows into the ribs of the nasty right hand of the Master, four clear breaks before Luke lunged forward in rage with a punch slayer and vampires couldn't themselves see. Xander, from long years of guessing as a batter at little league and then high school baseball, stepped back and hammered under the diaphragm, using the walking meat's momentum to land an upper right hook. Two ribs shattered as the beast tripped and fell over a coffin. Buffy quickly stepped forward and yanked him out into the night and to safety.

**The SHS Library**

Giles stops the spinning globe as he makes his way down to where Buffy, Willow, Jesse and Xander are at the study table.

"This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their... their Hell. But in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for, for man. All that remains of the old ones are vestiges, certain magics, certain creatures..."

"…And vampires," Buffy added, "What you guys saw tonight."

Jesse shook his head, fingering the bandage on his neck, which caused Willow to slap his ahnd away and glare at him. The boy shook his head, "Okay, this is where I have a problem. See, because we're talking about vampires. We're having a talk with vampires in it."

Willow looked at Jesse and semi-glared, "Isn't that what we saw tonight?"

Buffy interjected to definitely resolve things quickly, "No. No, th-those weren't vampires, those were just guys in thundering need of a facial. Or maybe they had rabies. It could have been rabies. A-and that guy turning to dust? Just a trick of light."

"Oh, I, I need to sit down."

"You are sitting down."

"Oh. Good for me."

Xander spoke up, unwrapping his hands from the fighter's tape he'd put on during his and Buffy's run after Jesse and Willow, "So vampires are demons?"

"The books tell the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul. He bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding... Killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the old ones to

return."

"Okay," he nodded, "Hey, Buffy, hands are a little sore here, could you re-wrap them for me. I just needed them to breathe."

She nodded, and Giles stared at the young man that Buffy had reported as having gone to town on a big strong vampire.

"Mr. Balboa, if you don't mind my asking, how were you able to accomplish going one on one with a clearly stronger and faster opponent?"

"My father Rocky Balboa taught me how to read how a guy's going to punch, sir. And playing baseball for eleven years, I'm used to dodging seventy mile an hour balls the size of most fists. With the dodging, I got lucky. The hitting is from eleven years of training."

"I understand…"

"You do!" Buffy asked.

"Well, yes…baseball is the only civilized sport you Americans have developed, based though it is on cricket. So I have made a slight study of it, so I understand the eleven years of dodging high speed objects. And as I was a fan of his father's back in his prime, I saw his unorthodox training regimen on television."

Buffy frowned, finishing the re-wraps. She'd have said something, when Xander noted it was a quarter 'til eleven.

"Buffy? We have to split. I promised your mom I'd have you home in a few minutes. Giles, if she asks, you didn't really need to help us, but we're combining English and History research assignments into … um … old and new myths."

The Watcher raised an eyebrow, so Xander continued, "Vampires and the heroes that Slay them… and modern interpretations."

Jesse snickered, "Boy your BS shovel is getting golden, Xan-Man…that's the best school excuse yet!"

Willow interrupted, "So what's with you and Buffy, Mr. Giles?"

Xander interrupted, "Hey, let's cover that tomorrow if we can, Wills. Come on, I have to get you guys home.

**March 11th, 1997 7:30 PM**

The day has past, and the group has planned to intervene at the Bronze in what the weird Angel guy and Giles have dubbed 'The Harvest.' Buffy is heading down the stairs when she hears the doorbell ring.

"Hello, Mrs. Summer, My name is Xander Balboa. I'm here to pick up Buffy for a study date at the school library?"

"Oh? She didn't say anything—"

"Hey mom, hi Xander…"

"Just a minute, young lady. How do I know this is studying? And why is the name Balboa so familiar?"

"Mom!"

Xander chuckled, "Probably 'cause my dad's name is Rocky Balboa, ma'am. And I'm having to give the librarian, Mr. Giles, a ride there as well after I drop some stuff off at the Bronze on the way."

The young man in nice, though dark, attire gestured in an upward-held palm out to where an early 70s black Lincoln waited. A bookish man of about forty or so seemed to be explaining a book to a redheaded girl holding a flashlight.

"Your school staff must be pretty dedicated…"

"Well, he's new too, but I hope we can squeeze him for the book knowledge before he burns out," Xander smirked ingenuously. "And rumor has it we have a couple of pop quizzes on Monday, so is it okay if we keep the Buffster out 'til eleven? My chunk o' classic car steel is very safe and I have no tickets."

Joyce smiled at the young man, "Well, since your Rocky Balboa's son…okay. But next time, I'd like a schedule of your study halls, Buffy."

Buffy rolled her eyes and dashed out the door and was halfway to the car before Xander moved.

"I'll have her back as promised…though it looks like if she keeps running off, I'll just be the pace car. Good night, Mrs. Summers."

"Good night, Mr. Balboa."

"Xander, please. When I hear Mr. Balboa, I'm expecting one of my dad's old trainers to show up and try making me become a boxer."

"Xander then. And eleven."

"Yes ma'am." He refused to tell her he only had his learner's permit, even if he had been driving for over a year, now.

**The Bronze**

The vampires head in, having had a warm up when a bus blew a tire out right in front of them. Sure half of them had been used up drunks, but hey, Luke had not only finished healing, but had sent the Master almost enough power to escape his captivity.

Six minute after the demons have sealed the bronze, Xander with the entire gang in his Lincoln Continental pull up near the Bronze to see that vampires were probably already inside.

"We have to hurry!" Buffy told the others, "I'll try to find an upstairs way in; you guys try the back. Xander? Try to make a loud distraction in about five minutes out here, okay? Then try to help the others. Let's go save some lives!"

A moment later, Luke feeds from his second victim in the Bronze…and it is enough…

The Master, in his lair, pounds against the barrier, which gives under his force, "I'm free! Luke, feed me more, my Vessel! I come to you! Then we finish at the Hellmouth."

Luke dropped the dead body of the girl as a car crashed into the front door, hurling debris into, over and through three minions. The car, big and black and with lights off, pulled away, having caused a very noticeable distraction.

Buffy used the loud Xander-caused entrance to break through an upstairs window and after dusting two vampires, made it to the railing. She noted how minions briefly halted gathering humans to deal with the threat at what used to be the main door, Buffy sees Luke on the stage, and meets the eyes of the Vessel…Luke. She prepared to drop to the floor carefully, as in the rear, Jesse, Giles and Willow broke in the door.

"I'm sorry, Weasel, were you in the middle of something?"

"That's VESSEL, Slayer!"

Vermin by any other name still needs killing. You didn't think I'd miss this. Did you?"

"I hoped you'd come. Was that your lapdog driving the car?"

"Be right down!" she said as she let herself fall to the surface of a pool table, and grabbed a cue and a ball, "The car? Oh, you mean that human kid that beat the crap out of you last night? That's Xander Balboa."

"Ah, the Mayor's pet…" Luke sneered as he nodded in name recognition, "We'll take care of that old demon after the Master opens the Hellmouth itself!"

Buffy hurls the cue ball very hard into the back of the skull of a vamp trying to eat Cordelia. The skull caved in and snapped the spine as it met the brain, rendering the beast as a body on the floor. Quickly she leapt from the table, somersaulting in mid-air to the stunned amazement of two minions. Landing quickly, she uses her momentum stabbing the cue, first to the left, then to the right, staking two minions as she pressed toward the stag.

Anotherr minons sought a name for itself, lunging from the front, slamming down hard on her stick. Knowing it will break in two, the Slayer turns away, using the snapped butt-piece of the cue to stab backwards into the heart of a fourth vamp, as she continues her spin to lunge back at her stick-breaker. Thumping it on the nose like a bad dog, it steps back, allowing her to roundhouse-kick its head before stabbing it in the heart before it falls. A full minute having passed, she slowing makes her way toward the Vessel.

"Okay, Vessel boy," she deadpans, removing her jacket, "You want blood?"

"I want yours! Only yours!"

"Works for me."

For the next ten minutes, the two of them fight, Buffy in high form, as in this universe, she has not had to deal with the guilt of failing Jesse, or having had to sneak out on her mom. Glancing out across the place, she occasionally darts away from the main fight to stab out and eliminate the stray minion as somehow her only-normal Watcher and friends are capably getting the civilians to safety.

Giles whispers loudly to nearby huddled and frightened patrons and staff, gesturing at the door as Jesse runs in, "Hurry! This way!"

Darla rallies the minions, turning from the door, as she watched Angelus slip in trying to be surreptitious as he snuck off to the side. "Forget the door! Kill the Slayer the Master will kill you!"

She watched carefully, and edged toward the door, when suddenly lights came on and the front of an early 70s black Lincoln Continental struck her at forty miles per hour as it tried to stop. Time itself seemed to halt for those inside, the body of a five centuries-old vampire nearly split in half from the trauma of the impressive hood ornament, speed between the confrontational Slayer and Vessel, and ending with her landing on a wooden hook upon which to hang coats. She dusted as the young man in the car swore from the pain of the installed shoulder safety belt.

Jesse, Giles and Willow quickly usher students and others to safety as the minions once more turn towards the door, confused as to what's happening. From behind, all three fire their crossbows at three minions. Willow's flies up and over, eventually striking a young man named Jack O'Toole in the right arm, his knife arm. The young man drops, and hitting his head on a chair falls unconscious as his 'boys' flee towards the front, pulling guns.

Giles' bolt slams home, dusting the vamp as it passes through and nearly skewers an outraged Cordelia Chase.

"Watch it! Stay out of the rescue thing 'cause you sooooo suck at it," she sniped as she ran by. Willow turned to Giles, not seeing Jesse's bolt strike his target right in the ass, flooring the bloodsucker and causing much distraction.

"Are you sure I can't shoot her…I know she's evil…"

"Wait until she's a vampire, Miss Rosenberg…"

Jack O'Toole's rather inept gang began firing their crappy fire arms into the vampires around them, causing great pain, but having the result of only dragging things out another five minutes before they miraculously took out one of the minions before all being killed. One of the vamps took 'Katie' off the screaming O'Toole, and finished all of them off with the carving of a big 'A' for Aurelius n their chests after cutting their throats.

Xander, meanwhile, had helped a bookish-looking man with glasses to the front door, getting him free of a persistent but inept minion that Xander dusted before another pushed him hard into a wall. From the stage, Buffy sees his plight, and uses a cymbal from a drum set as a Frisbee, decapitating Xander's attacker before it could follow up. Xander winces, feeling at least two cracked ribs as he uses a very sharp broken leg of a bar table to try standing.

Harmony passes Jesse, who notes that one of the vampires is picking up the handgun, and smirks. Unsure if the bloodsucker will kill Harmony his bane or Willow his 'sister,' not that it mattered to the young man of actual though hidden high character, he threw himself up and in the way. The girls screamed, Harmony turned and fled as Willow dropped in horror.

"Jesse! Move Jesse!" But there was no longer a pulse; somehow the bullet had found the aorta above the heart and ended a life in the blink of an eye. Uncaring of anything else, she sobbed as Giles desperately sought to reload his crossbow to protect her.

Luke grabs Buffy from behind as she saved Xander.

Luke sneers as he reaches in, "I always wanted to kill a Slayer!"

He roars and moves in to bite Buffy, but she snaps her head back, head-butting the Vessel's nose, then grabbing him and tossing him into three minions that are in front of the stage trying to grab a few more humans.

"How'd it taste?" she smirks.

Giles fires the bolt as the vamp finds itself out of bullets. The bolt flies low and to the left.

"Damn!" Watcher and vampire exclaim for different reasons as the bolt turns out to be a groin shot, just high enough to shatter the bones in the area while tearing away flesh important to males.

Buffy grabs a microphone stand and holds it like a javelin as across the way Xander quietly steadies himself against the wall to make one last attack on a vampire when he hears Willow's distress. Luke leaps up onto the stage, Buffy dodging out of the way of a lunge.

"Slayer…You forget, metal can't hurt me."

"There's something you forgot about, too," she shouts as she hurls the microphone, stand and all, at the window behind Luke. He ducks out of the way, and the window behind him shatters, "Sunrise!"

A bright light pours in through it, Luke shielding his face until he realizes the bright light outside is not the sun, but a street lamp. Turning to sneer and finish her off, he feels his chest pierced by wood. Buffy had retrieved her stake and put it to good use. The Vessel dusted even as his Master approached the building with his last four minions.

Buffy shakes her head in disgusted disbelief, "In about nine hours, moron!"

Four vampires rush in to join the screaming one Giles is moving to finish off in what will ironically be a mercy killing.

Buffy stared at Luke's ashes for only a moment, then leapt into the four newcomers, happily working off further frustration, dusting one immediately. A brooding vampire showed surprise as it stepped out of the shadows and moved to consider assistance.

"She did it! I'll be damned!"

"Yes, you will, Angelus," the Master tells him as the old vampire slams a fist into Angel's back, ripping out the heart and destroying it.

The old vampire gloated until it a fraction of a second later felt and then saw a table leg plunge from back to front through his heart. Spinning as he fell and turned to dust, he espied Xander.

"Behold, the One Who Sees!"

And the bones collapsed in a pile onto the floor as a strange and almost-unperceptible flash glowed upon the declaration around Xander, who now nursed his wrist, the force necessary to slam the piece of wooden furniture into the beast had been agonizing, adding to the pain of having seen Jesse murdered earlier by Luke.

Giles, helping a student up, had turned to see and hear most of this, and froze for a moment at the young man before him, 'Prophecy by one prophesized; I'd better keep the lad close and perhaps training one who is Named thus. Angelus and the Master with a single blow."

He watched as the young man proceeded to stomp most of the bones into dust in something of a rage, the words uttered clearly indicating it was because of his friend's sacrifice for others.


End file.
